To start with I would like to say that I do not mean to offend in the following statement:

"Osiris II. You need not lecture me on the basics of Hieroglyphic alphabetic structure. I do study them and attend lectures each month on them. Most biliteral and triliteral glyphs contain aleph and yodh, such as ka, ba and sa. At least Neb-Maat-Re was arguing constructively rather than trying to tear down my argument.

Firstly I would like to say that any error would by on my part, not on the part of the Egyptologists. I presume that Dr. Aidan Dodson and Dr. Nigel Strudwick know far more on the subject than anyone else here, and I have had the pleasure of speaking to both of them.
I am sorry if I made myself unclear. I assure you that these pronunciations are used commonly. However it is difficult to explain them over the Internet for obvious reasons. I should remind all of you that there are no 'correct' pronunciations, and these are only the ones that I have been advised on by experts.

I shall quote the oxford English Dictionary in my plight to verify my answers:

Thoth is indeed one syllable. The modern spelling and pronunciation is derived from Classical Greek, which has no 'th' sound in the same sense as the way that we use it (Thursday, third etc.). The aspirated consonant theta of ancient Greek is pronounced as a more throaty 't' (as in anT-Hill). The OED recommends the pronunciation 'Thoath' for Thoth. Like Toawth. To rhyme in a single syllable with oath and both. The phonetic representation in the OED is 'taut'.

As for Maat- I do know that it is not spelt with an 'r'. However, when spoken it contains a long 'ah' sound. In English the spoken inflection is such that diphthongs are often lost at the end of words. For example, the British pronounce the word 'tea' with a slight 'y' sound at the end. With the sound 'ah' (try saying it!), the diaphonic syllabite 'r' appears- we say 'arrrh', not 'aaa-h'. Thus Ma'at, even though it contains no 'r's, is pronounced as Mahrt. Some more strict Egyptologists say Ma'at, with a slight stutter. The OED advises as above 'ma'artt'. Two semi-syllables there, or at least one split by a stutter. Saying 'Moo-at' is most definetely wrong.

Hathor is the same. It comes from the Ancient Greek, and is spelt by Herodotus as 'at 'op (rough breathing over the alpha)- two separate words that would clearly be pronounced as Hat-horr. This was more or less verified by what Neb-Maat-Re said, although I forgot to mention that these two syllables are slurred to form 'Haart-her' or 'Haart-hor'. Confusion over omegas and omicrons in the texts could result in either '-hor' or '-hoor'. The key thing here is that the split is at Hat-hor, rather than Hath-or. (Foremost= hat, Hor= horus) Nobody pronounces Horus as 'Herrus' or 'Hoorus'. (I believe! lol). Nobody says Hath-shepsut either I believe. You should by looking at parts of other words say the 'Hat' of Hatshepsut, combined with the 'Hor' of Horus. Hat-hor. If spelt out as it is said it becomes 'Haahrt-Horr'. Undisputably, surely.

In all these circumstances it is the aleph (the little picture of the vulture Osiris II!) that has caused the problem. Turn to page 27 of G.E.G. It advises that you pronounce aleph as a glottal stop (hence Ma'at- with the little hiccup) as in German words that begin with a vowel. Take the example in the book- der Adler. You would say 'der Aahrdler', passing through the 'r' sound (it is almost impossible not to), not der Aedler. Infact the American accent stresses the non-existent 'r's even further. Like the word 'manor' for example. The British pronounce it a 'mana', but americans would usually say 'ma-norr'.

I am sorry that I got so defensive, but I am sure that Egyptologists like Dr. Dodson and Dr. Strudwick would not devote their entire life to Egyptology without knowing how to pronounce a god's name. It was most certainly my poor explanitory skills that confused you, not the Egyptologists.

Do you agree now- or I am still wrong? If you think that I am still completely wrong then I'll be gracious and accept my error, I just think that my sources are probably quite accurate. Either way I can sort this out in three weeks time at the next lecture on Queen's Road. Sorry."

By all means, sort it out.
You make several contidictions in your statements. You say Americans stress the missing "r" in manor--I think manor IS spelt with an "r".
You say that my pronunciation of Ma-at was Moo-at. Wrong! Moo-at was never a reference to Ma-at. Perhaps you confused it with the way I was pronouncing Mut. Again you make the statement that it sounds like Mar-at, but in another paragraph you say that is is two vowels seperated by a gutteral pause--which is correct?
I am very pleased you have met and spoken to Drs. Dodson and Strudwick--they are both excellent scholars.
I belong to the ARCE organization, and at the last conference, in Tucson, I met and spoke to both--also to Peter Piccione, Kent Weeks and other scholars. Are we comparing esteemed people that we have met?
I think one of the major things that must be remembered is that the Egyptian language is not spoken. Any persons personal was of sounding out a word or phrase is completely acceptable. Until you are able to channel an ancient Egyptian, who tells you how a word would sound in his language, make no judgement of others.

I was merely stating that there are indeed several different pronunciations of these words, but Mahrt and Ma'at are both acceptable.
When I used manor as an example I was showing how the British do not stress the 'r'- it is silent. The americans hopwever do stress 'r' sounds, especially the 'r' sound in 'ahhh'. Say the alphabet and stop at 'r'. Say it again and again- it could be spelt as 'aahh' and vice-verca.

On television Maat is almost always pronounced as 'Mahrt', even if the 'r' is softer than I have made it appear.

My main point is that the aleph sound, 'ah' is pronounced as 'arrh' rather than 'aay'. Loprieno points out that aleph corresponds to an 'r' in Semitic languages and so, in Egyptian history, may have been some version of an 'r' or 'ah' ("a uvular trill") in Egyptian. This further strengthens the idea of aleph being an 'arrrh' sound. This would result in Ma'at being pronounced as 'Mahrt'- to rhyme with 'art' and 'cart'. You say yourself that 'Mah-at' is better than 'mat'. By stressing the 'r' you distinguish between the two.

I would be interested to know what words rhyme with your pronunciation of Ma'at. In an English accent I expect that most of these words would include and 'r' at some point- such as 'mart' and 'cart'.

I am sorry to have confused you- I do assume however that irrelevant of how poorly I have tried to explain the pronunciations they are widely used.

Last edited by Psusennes I on Wed Sep 29, 2004 9:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

After doing all of this research, I am beginning to think that all of these pronunciations are incorrect in regard to convention!

If Aleph is an 'uh' sound (gutteral swallow) and the other 'a' (the forearm) is pronounced as 'aiy' (as in the arabic 'ayn) then Ma'at should really be pronounced through modern convention as Muh-aiy.

I think that I'll just stick with 'Maht', and say it like they do on T.V. This argument really is quite pointless as modern convention is completely different from the original pronunciation (probably!).
For example the Egyptian king whose name is most accurately transcribed as "R?-mss" is known as "Rameses", even though cuneiform tablets that mention him suggest that a more accurate rendering with vowels would have been "Ri`amasesa".
In the wise words of the genius who was Sir Alan Gardiner:

It must never be forgotten that the vocalizations thus provided are purely artificial makeshifts and bear little or no relation, so far as the vowels are concerned, to the unknown original pronunciations as heard and spoken by the Egyptians themselves. [p. 28]

P.S Thoth is obviously god of the moon, who doubted it? As a baboon he almost always wears the lunar disk and crescent moon. He was shown as a baboon supposeedly because their serious expressions made them look wise. Thoth is one of the coolest gods, but I still say Thoath (like 'oath') rather that Thoth (like 'goth'), as most Egyptologists on T.V say that, and so does the Oxford English Dictionary.

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